DEAD END DRIVE IN is a favorite of Tarantino’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Melbourne International Film Festival, where I am currently having a blast, is also showing DEAD END DRIVE IN. It’s my ROAD WARRIOR meets EXTERMINATING ANGEL cocktail. Moody, fruit forward, with a wry finish,

DEAD END DRIVE IN is a favorite of Quentin Tarantino’s. El Q  is forgotten cinema’s National Gallery, a film maker whose idiosyncratic sense of wicked fun pulses from the screen. Quentin loves all the movies showing in the Ozploitation section of this festival.

Quentin first saw DEAD END DRIVE IN at a downtown LA grindhouse in its first week of release, and his affection for it has continued for 22 years. Indeed, US critics had a higher opinion than their Australian counterparts.

 

” …That increasingly rare surprise: a piece of schlock that turned out to be exciting and offbeat. It’s one of those strange grindhouse classics worth looking for… Violently kinetic action, sometimes amazing visual style, density and energy…It’s one of those movies, which apparently promising little, ends up giving you a lot, a  comic nightmare made hellishly real. “

 - Michael Wilmington - Los Angeles Times.

A critic who shares my taste for genre cocktails is a rarity. Thank you, Mr. Wilmington. There are too many self vaunting critics,  mostly in the increasingly flatulent blogosphere, who behave like eunuchs at the orgy; they can’t do it, so they bitch about people who can.

Ned Manning and Natalie McCurry, the teen runaway and her boyfriend, who get imprisoned in a drive in movie theatre.

DEAD END DRIVE IN had the temerity to be socially critical of its target audience’s appetite for junk culture, while reveling in junk culture movie tropes. It’s my socio-political-retro-future-action-exploitation flic adapted by Peter Smalley from acclaimed writer Peter Carey’s short story ” Crabs”. Producer Andrew Williams had the foresight to recognize its movie potential; I took it in a direction and style Mr. Carey did not care for. Sorry, Peter. Indeed, it lacks subtlety. Quite deliberately. I lack subtlety. I had a particular vision in my head and this is how it came out, but the movie has developed a cult following lasting 23 years so far, and may point people back to the original source of inspiration. Because, in the beginning was The Word. Raise a glass to writers. They are under-appreciated.

I added a series of titles to set the scene for DEAD END DRIVE IN, projecting a distopic future. WHAT IF Mururoa Attol experienced a nuclear test accident poisoning our Pacific fishing grounds? WHAT IF South Africa collapsed into bloody inter-racial war, causing gold and mineral exports to cease? WHAT IF there was another Wall Street crash, destabilizing the interlocking economies of the entire world, propelling urban crime into overdrive? These were valid questions in 1985. I wanted to ground Peter Carey’s surreal story in socio-political foundations relevant to world audiences in the Reagan era.  Then make a moody surreal punk movie out of it.

So imagine then, if these disasters had come to pass, our Australia as it might have been in in the late 90’s. Unemployment is rife. Manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas to cheaper labor markets. The Automobile has become a sternly guarded possession. Karboy gangs compete with tow truck operators to  roam the highways, pirating vehicles, leaving the occupants dead. WHAT IF one response from the beleaguered government to social and economic decay was to transform regular drive in movie theatres into benevolent youth concentration camps, the scrap heap for society’s cast-offs, where the weak, the unemployed and unemployable are lured by DISCOUNT TICKET PRICES (!) and literally imprisoned? Elite society is now safe.

We see these inmates adjusting quickly, content to be supplied with free junk food, all night exploitation movies, loud meaningless music, drugs, contraceptives, everything their junk value system has conditioned them to desire. With life on the outside an increasing battle, things could be worse. And from the government’s point of view, the arrangement reduces the cost of law enforcement and the prisons. Into this hedonistic dead end comes an unsuspecting young man, who quickly decides he will not play ball. But his girlfriend thinks it’s better than a teen runaway’s life. Our hero’s crisis of conscience comes when the government start shipping in Australia’s unwanted Asian migrant community. This was an element in the story I wanted to expand further, but was unable to. The US distributor even edited some moments depicting racism from the finished film. They felt those moments cut a little too close to the bone.

35 split day/nights of shooting in and around Sydney’s abandoned Matraville Drive In was a glorious experience I will never forget. The design of the Star Drive In by Larry Eastwood and Nick McCallum is nothing short of genius, beautifully lensed by Paul Murphy. This 1985 film demonstrates the high professional standard all departments of the Australian Film Industry had reached in the 15 years of its renaissance. Stunt co-ordinator Guy Norris performed the record breaking climactic truck jump stunt, and earned himself a well deserved international career.

My most bizarre memory of the shoot occurred when, at 3 am, a car full of drunken hoons, whooping and hollering, their testosterone stimulated by sounds of  motorized mayhem, skidded round the entry barriers and roared into the drive in at high speed, perhaps hoping to join in the fray. We were about to do some gunfight scenes, so there were a couple of M 16s loaded with blanks on set. Someone - who shall remain nameless  (!) - fired a burst in their direction, prompting a fast U turn and exit. I think they got their desired adrenalin rush. Perhaps they needed a change of underwear anyway.

Subsequently, a European resident of a neighboring Matraville street took out a writ in the New South Wales Supreme Court to shut down the film because  the nightly sounds of gunfire and explosions were giving him World War Two flashbacks. Indeed, gunfire at 3 am is grounds for complaint.  ( Personally I enjoy that sort of thing, but I guess it’s not for everybody.)  Co-producer Damien Parer handled this potential disaster with great expertise. He hired a barrister ( attorney) and headed to court to request the right to discharge firearms  until midnight. But when the complainant’s counsel stated that his client was a decorated war hero, it looked like we were sunk. Then the judge asked what the decoration was. “ The Iron Cross “ was the answer. It is said the judge’s face hardened. We were allowed our requested firearms curfew. We finished those scenes in a couple of nights. But it was a lesson to me to be more sensitive to environmental impact on the civilian population.

The wrap party, commencing when shooting finished at dawn, offered an unique activity: playing dodgem cars with the few remaining working vehicles in the drive in. T-Bone that Fairmont! Rear end that Mazda!.. Without damage insurance consequences! Woo Hoo!

Those were the days, my friend.  We thought they’d never end…